How to make your healthy habits stick – make a promise to yourself

Adele Stickland

Understanding yourself & be truthful with yourself

Last week I outlined some of the excuses you, and everybody else uses to stop themselves from moving forward in life. Excuses that are varied and interesting and feel very legitimate but at the end of the day are ultimately holding you back.

I appreciate that the more invested you are in your excuse the harder it is to see it and to release yourself from it. It is easy to hide behind an excuse, especially if you spice it up with a heavy load of emotion and drama. And let’s be honest we all love a bit of drama 🙂

This is a delicate area I know because of the response I had to the last blog, there is an emotional investment in your life as it stands at the moment. However much you think you want to change:

Your eating habits,

Feel better about yourself

Take up some appropriate exercise

There is always the comfort and draw of staying where you are. I appreciate change is difficult and at some level, you are invested in staying safe and doing what you have always done.

My aim with last weeks blog was to outline some of the common excuses we all use so you can identify them. Then by outlining them and being aware of them will help you to move forward. If you can see how you sidetrack yourself from your goal by using what feels like a legitimate and honest ‘excuse’ barrier you can see that it prevents you from being the gorgeous girl you have strive to be.

Now you have found out more about you keeping yourself safe is stopping you from reaching your dreams. Recognise your ‘brand’ of excuse to justify why you can’t stick to your healthier lifestyle?

Tiredness and overwhelm is because you are not looking after yourself, eating badly, unhealthy food and barely exercising, these issues are within your control. Your previously held beliefs and opinions have been subconsciously affecting your life.

You now realise that your subconscious opinion is collecting evidence to prove that “you can’t lose weight” or “you can’t get healthy” and that belief then becomes a truth for you. You collect enough evidence to turn that theory into a strongly held personal belief about yourself. Well, you were wrong, you can change and you can lose weight and get healthy.

Break out of your excuse mode and introduce some calm, simple habits and you will feel:

Clear-headed

Calm

Less likely to react to small issues

Happier

Fitter

Focused

Sound worth it doesn’t it?

Be honest with yourself recognise your excuse pattern, shine the light of awareness on what is holding you back and using up your precious time and energy. Then you will be ready to move on and move forward with your life and your healthy habits.

The next big question is how do you change this, once you recognise that you are making excuses and things are within your control how can you make your dreams a reality? how can you keep a promise to yourself?

How to keep a promise to yourself & stick to your healthy habits

When you keep a promise to yourself it is a sign of your personal integrity, and that integrity will help you to realise your dreams when you take action that matches your dream. You make it happen so that the alignment of your dream which comes from your heart (desire) turns to your mind to find a plan which then allows your body to put into action*

Heart (desire)

Mind (plan)

Body (action)

When you keep a promise to yourself you can trust yourself and you feel happier, your self-esteem and confidence grow and you have personal pride and integrity.

Get off the people pleasing wagon and stop ‘yes’ing people to death and start looking after yourself. When you ignore yourself or break a promise to yourself the feeling is not immediate, but it will have a long-term continual effect of unfulfillment. You are letting your dreams go instead of fighting for them.

Here is what you can do to honour yourself and stick to your personal promise:

Be realistic and believe that it can happen

Stretch yourself consider drinking not 5 glasses of water a day but 8 join the water challenge and get support join water challenge

Specific, your new habit needs to be wiggle proof, tell 3 people a day what you are going to do

Use powerful and evocative language that resonates with you, not I hope or I will try or I wish…. go for I will or I can

Think ahead – think through and plan how you are going accomplish your goal if it is as simple as water, do you have a water carrier for your dog walk?

Ironically the more you resent the promise that you have made the more you need it.

Make a promise sheet, write out your excuse if you failed and the consequence you will have to do and then a tick box at the end if you kept it.

Accountability buddy – not a pal or someone that has the same beliefs and theories as you, not somebody that has the same excuses and inner dialogue as you, somebody who will motivate and help you to be positive and on track.

Make your ‘consequence’ uncomfortable or even embarrassing

Make the consequence of inactivity or lack of commitment really really personal to you.

If you love your Friday night wine, no wine that week.

Donate £10 to Trump or a politician you hate, I feel uncomfortable just writing that! Imagine how motivating that would be if it was truly personal to you?

No coffee for a week

No chocolate for a week

No internet for a day!

No favourite TV show/Netflix series for a week!

Or make them embarrassing or slightly annoying consequences

Say hello to 5 x strangers

Fess up to someone you don’t want to tell – like your mum

Buy a coffee for a stranger and explain why you are doing it

Sing a song out loud in PUBLIC

Or maybe the consequence that would work best for you would be more EXERCISE:

15 mins cardio extra this week

Clean out your sock drawer

Vacuum your husbands/son’s car 🙂

run upstairs x 10

578 push-ups!

I would love to know what your consequences are, you don’t have to strip naked and hit yourself with a birch twig.

It would be interesting to know which consequences you would stick to, let me know below

Schedule a call with me to discover if Get Gorgeous is the right programme for your needs. You and I can talk through your health blocks, understand what is pulling you away from your health goals. By the end of the call, you’ll know exactly what you need to do get your health goals in place. Once you are clear on that, we can discuss ways that I can help you to get your plan your health strategy in easy steps. We may decide to work together to help you reach your weight loss goals successfully – and if so great – if not then that’s okay too. You’ll still have a clear plan to move your life forward.